


Special Interests

by Mystradigans



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Autism, Autism Spectrum, Autistic Character, Autistic Hermione Granger, Gen, Professor Harry Potter, Teacher Harry Potter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 09:25:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15312465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mystradigans/pseuds/Mystradigans
Summary: Harry and Hermione chat about their time at Hogwarts, their brief attempt to be aurors, and why Hermione has come to realise she's autistic.





	Special Interests

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know why I wrote this rlly other than that I'm v autistic and finally getting dianosed now at age 19, after 3 years of dithering and going between different psychiatrists as they decided whether or not I was too creative to be autistic and I relate to Hermione a lOT. Please come talk to me in the comments I promise I'm really lovely and not at all likely to info-dump on you at any moment..,.,

“Alright class, excellent work today” said Harry, grinning at the third years assembled in front of him. “For homework, keep practising Protego and read pages 104-108 on stunning spells so you’re prepared for next lesson!”

His class filed out, a few stragglers lingering to ask him a question or thank him for the lesson. When the Defence Against the Dark Arts Room was empty, he turned to the bookcase on his right.

“Hey Hermione” he greeted the slight distortion in the air in front of it. “When did you get here?”

Hermione laughed and removed her concealment charm. “You’re impossible to fool, I swear” she complained. “Too much practice with Teddy chameleon-ing xirself into every room in your house. I’ve been here about 10 minutes, but I thought it better not to disturb your lesson and set off another round of headlines about ‘Ministry official Granger-Weasley has secret affair with Harry Potter”

“Mm, good thinking” Harry agreed. “So, Ministry official Granger-Weasley, to what do I owe the pleasure? Is it to do with DUE?”

 

D.U.E, or Dobby’s Union of Elves, was one of Hermione’s initiatives in her position as head of the department of Humanoid Rights- along with Lupin’s Law against werewolf discrimination. It was a worker’s alliance for house elves to protect them from abusive employers, offer free counselling to elves who’d been mistreated, and help the slowly growing handful of elves who, like Dobby had, wanted to break out of their role as slaves. Harry was honoured to be its patron, as well as working with the Hogwarts elves to see that they got what they needed from the alliance. It wasn’t uncommon for Hermione to turn up at Hogwarts to ask him about an elf who wanted a transfer to or from the school, but he got the feeling from the anxiety painted into her expression that today was something more serious.

“No. Not D.U.E. It’s um, it’s not work related” – Hermione was pacing in a circle around the classroom, tugging on her shock of curls as she tended to do when she was nervous. Harry got dizzy following her movements with his eyes and so gave up trying to look at her. She was looking seemingly deliberately as far away from him as possible anyway. “Harry, do you- do you remember how I couldn’t cope with Auror training?”

“Yeah” he said gently. “But that wasn’t your fault, none of us could.” It was true. After the war, Harry Ron and Hermione had signed up to join the Aurors, hoping to round up the last of Voldemort’s supporters. Hermione, in fairness, had struggled the most out of the three of them, most days unable to walk into the crowded, noisy training centre without becoming overwhelmed to the point of being unable to talk. Ron and Harry had fared slightly better, but eventually decided that constantly re-enacting the scenarios that still gave them nightmares wasn’t exactly helping them find peace. So they’d quit the Aurors and gone their separate ways; Harry into teaching, Hermione into the Ministry, and Ron into a low-level job at Gringotts for a few years until the birth of his and Hermione’s first child, Rose, at which point he’d decided to be a full-time parent.

“But with you and Ron it was the PTSD. You were reliving what it was like to be in the war because they were literally simulating that danger, right? But for me… it was different”

 

That was true, Harry had to admit. Hermione’d seemed to be triggered far more by the atmosphere than the training itself. She’d often complained that it was too loud, too bright, that there was too much happening at once and she couldn’t cope; whereas Harry and Ron had been fine until they’d been asked to escape a simulated hostage situation which brought flashbacks of Malfoy Manor straight to the surface. Harry had assumed that this was due to the trauma of the battle of Hogwarts- it had, after all, been bright with the flashes of spells and full of the sound of screaming. But hadn’t Hermione always been freaked out in busy, loud environments? At school, she had always spent the least possible time in the Great Hall as possible; eating at super-fast speed or even skipping meals in order to go to the library. Harry had once suggested that she bring her homework down, so she could at least eat dinner at a regular pace for a change, but she had shot him down immediately. _“I can’t stand it in there!”_ she’d said, with the level of horror she normally reserved for reacting to the plight of house-elves. _“It’s all so… invasive!”_

 

“But for me, I’ve always… when there’s too many stimulants happening at the same time it’s like I just shut down, like I can hear every single thing happening in the room but can’t process anything- as if they’re all speaking really fast in a foreign language and I’m underwater. And even if like, there’s air-conditioning in the room and it’s too strong it can be too much. If I’m overwhelmed I forget how to move or talk and it’s… it’s like a panic attack but I’m not panicking I’m just… not there? And I thought maybe everyone had that, or I was just introverted, or it was linked to my anxiety, and well, in a way it is but it’s more. I’ve been doing some research and I think I’m… autistic? Do you know what autism is?”

 

Harry kind of did, at least he’d heard it mentioned in primary school once or twice. He’d also seen a random clip on the muggle news during that summer before fifth year where he watched the news at the Dursley’s every-day. A mother was being interviewed with her 6-year-old son, who could remember the details of every train scheduled on the North Western Railway for the next year but didn’t know how to interact with other children.

 

“You’re a genius… but… you don’t have empathy?” he offered slowly. “Well you’re certainly a genius, but you have friends and you care about people’s feelings and stuff. Are you sure you’re not just, you know-“

 

“That’s not exactly what autism’s like” interrupted Hermione calmly, cutting Harry off before he could ponder any further. “It’s a blanket term for a whole spectrum but there are some typical characteristics that most of us have. For example, I struggle to make eye contact and read people’s facial expressions, and I also get overwhelmed when there’s too much going on in all of my senses that I can’t control. The ‘genius’ thing is interesting Harry, because while autistic people may have better memories we’re not necessarily smarter- actually lots of people on the spectrum have severe learning difficulties. What makes people like me seem clever is that we tend to hyper-fixate on topics and want to know everything about them and get excited when we start talking about them until we can’t stop-“

 

“Like you’re doing now?” chuckled Harry, smiling. Hermione stopped her pacing for a moment and laughed.

 

“That’s ironic” she said. “I guess I’ve hyper-fixated on autism itself!”

 

“Yeah and on every subject you took an O.W.L in! So, you do the hyper-whatsit thing and you get overwhelmed, but you have loads of friends. Loads of empathy too, you’re always telling me to think about people’s feelings!”

 

“Yeah well you just _don’t_ it’s bizarre, Ron’s the same- Ginny too actually. But I _overthink_ what people might be thinking because I’m so scared of getting it wrong. Apparently, this is quite a common autistic thing; it’s not always obvious to us when someone’s trying to… to be horrible to us or upset us just from the way they say something, so we learn to be hyperaware of any reason someone might possibly have for feeling badly towards us”

 

She had stumbled over the suggestion that someone would be horrible to her without her knowing and Harry felt a sudden surge of guilt. “When you say you don’t notice people being horrible to you” he said slowly, not sure he wanted to hear the answer. “D’you mean me and Ron, in first year?”

 

Hermione sighed, and finally stopped her pacing to sit at a desk slightly out of his line of vision, clasping her hands tightly around her knees. “Well, yes” she said bluntly. “I… I didn’t realise I annoyed you until I literally overheard Ron saying that it was no wonder I had no friends. But before that as well” -she hastened to add- “in primary school I was bullied quite nastily for being different. I mean, I was very socially incompetent, wouldn’t shut up about my favourite subjects, sometimes my magic played up when I got emotional and stuff would fly around the room, so everyone was a bit scared of me- and not to mention being biracial in a mostly-white area! But when other children would inevitably try to wind me up, I never realised what was happening until it was too late, I really thought they were trying to make friends. And then I got to Hogwarts and thought at last, here would be somewhere _full_ of people like me, somewhere I wouldn’t be different, and it… wasn’t”.

 

Her bottom lip quivered, and Harry’s heart went out to the 11-year-old girl he felt he could almost see in front of him again, crying in the bathrooms because she thought she’d fit in for the first time in her life and it was crashing around her. “I’m so sorry” he murmured, getting choked up himself. “Hermione, if I’d realised- “

 

“Don’t be silly” Hermione said. She wiped her eyes on the back of her hand and sniffed loudly, before managing a watery smile. “You _did_ become my friend after that, and through you I made loads more friends through you. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that at least three-quarters of the friends I made at Hogwarts were your friends first. And that… I can’t thank you enough for that”

 

Harry had to wipe at his own eyes after that, and there was a moment of contented silence where they both politely pretended they couldn’t see the other pulling themselves together from the brink of tears.

 

“So… this autism thing then” Harry said eventually, once he could trust himself to talk. “Who knows about it? Have you seen a doctor about it?”

 

“Just you and Neville and Luna” Hermione told him. “Neville suggested to me that that’s what it might be, because Luna’s autistic as well, and then I spoke to them about it and did some research of my own and now I’m fairly sure. I don’t know how to approach the issue with Ron, because he definitely won’t have heard of it… maybe I’ll get him a book or something… And I don’t know whether I want to see a doctor. I’d quite like to get officially diagnosed but I don’t think that really changes anything- it’s not like I want it _cured_. I might see if I can get some more therapy and bring it up there. But I wanted you to know because… I don’t know, I feel like it explains a lot about me.”

 

“Yeah, that makes total sense” Harry said. “Maybe don’t get Ron a book though, we both know he’ll skim the first chapter and pretend to have read it”

 

“True” laughed Hermione. “Gosh, look at the time Harry- I’d better get going- I have a meeting about Squib integration in 10 minutes!”

 

“Go and save the world” Harry grinned. “Meanwhile, I have a lesson to prepare on the jelly-legs jinx… so… equally important”

 

They hugged briefly, and Hermione stepped into his office to use the floo network. Harry, however, didn’t turn to his lessons plans just yet. Instead, he headed to the library, fully intending to familiarise himself with autism and start being the most understanding friend to Hermione that he could be.


End file.
